1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for electricity management, and more particularly, to a system and a method for electricity management used to test an uninterruptible power supply apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the booming development of the information industry in recent years, a variety of hardware equipment, such as personal computers, communication equipment, and workstations, is broadly applied in all strata of society. As information itself is a high value-added product, people try every means to ensure the security of information and the normal operation of computer systems, so the requirement for a power supply with consistent quality has become stricter. While electronic power equipment has been heavily used, the derived harmonic waves may result in poor-quality electricity, and factors such as natural disasters, all make it impossible for electricity providers to guarantee a stable power supply with high quality. Thus, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) becomes an indispensable device for computers or communication systems, and how to effectively test the function of the uninterruptible power supply system also becomes an important issue.
The common practice of testing the function of an uninterruptible power supply system is to discharge electricity with electronic load equipment (Loader) after removing part of the batteries in the system, and then installing them back into the system after the capacity of the other batteries has been measured and the removed batteries have been fully recharged. The reason that only part of the batteries is removed for testing is to avoid a blackout during the testing. Such a method results in shortcomings include: manpower to be allocated to battery disassembly/assembly, the expense of the discharge/recharge equipment required during the testing process builds up an increased cost structure, and moreover, an estimate of the available service time during the blackout calculated based on the discharging capacity discharged through a discharge machine may be inaccurate and unreliable. In addition, the electricity discharged during the testing conducted by the conventional testing method indicates a total waste of energy. Therefore, it is necessary to provide an electricity management system and electricity management method for testing a UPS system periodically and automatically so as to manage the status of the uninterruptible power supply system, furthermore, to control the risk of power blackout efficiently in an attempt to eliminate the shortcomings of the prior art.